


a house by the sea

by erebones, losebetter



Series: Gay Dads [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Post-Canon, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 15:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16663762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones, https://archiveofourown.org/users/losebetter/pseuds/losebetter
Summary: In retirement, Caleb and Fjord embark on a new adventure.





	a house by the sea

**Author's Note:**

> It was only a matter of time before I wrote about Van. Grey and I made him together and he is our soft son who we love very much. Maybe there will be more of this content, maybe not, depends on how much we feel like converting our late night ramblings into concise fic. 
> 
> **grey note:** don't be fooled, most of this fic was done by rache because she is the powerhouse of this widofjord cell!! i'm the luckiest beta in the world!!!!!!! but yes, we've been headcanoning about van for a long while now so it's about time he appeared in a fic. ✧・ﾟ:* this series will exist for both of us to put bits and bobs of fluffy dad!fic in, so i hope you're all prepared for that. mwah.
> 
> Title is from the song by moddi

.summer.

The house comes to them in summertime. Not on legs of its own, though Caleb has certainly seen stranger, but by letter. An older woman, once a trusted ally, a hub of information whose tendrils spread across the land like delicate spidersilk, is retiring. She wants neither money nor favors—she’s finished trading those. She only wants someone to care for the house. Someone, or perhaps two someones, who, like her, seek peace at the end of a long and wearing road.

It’s well past midsummer before they make it to her little corner of the Coast. Such is the hazard of an adventurer so entangled in the workings of the world—there are many loose ends to tie up. And still more they leave behind, but Nott and Beau agree to sign over their claims to the estate without much fuss, and so late one afternoon Caleb finds himself on horseback at the top of a hill, the taste of salt in the back of his throat, and a grand, sunlit vista tumbling before him fit to take his breath away.

“Hey.” Settled on the horse beside him, Fjord reaches out and touches his arm. “All right?”

Caleb takes a deep, cleansing breath. The wind tugs at his hair where it’s tied back from his face, threaded through with the occasional strand of silver amongst the red. He’ll never admit it, even now, but there’s a warring struggle in his chest, two armies threatening to clash between the branches of his ribs. _You are allowed to want this_ , he tells himself. _You’ve earned a bit of rest._

“I’m fine. Or… I will be.” Caleb clasps Fjord’s hand and squeezes. “Let’s go and see the place then, ja?”

Caleb touches the letter where it’s tucked carefully in an oilskin sleeve inside his coat. He has no need to take it out and read it—once was enough to burn the words inside his brain, and he chews them over silently as they take the fork in the path away from town. The house was built a long time ago, she told them, nestled above a small fishing village some miles north of Nicodranas. Once it was her bower, her escape, the center of her kingdom—there are two escape tunnels, one that leads to the cliffs and one to the town, and a smooth stone pathway down to the beach. They are welcome to the little fishing skiff, she said in a charming aside. She never used it for its intended purpose, but it is seaworthy and up to the task.

She had included a little sketch at the bottom of the parchment, but even her passable artistic skill is not enough to prepare Caleb for the sight that greets him at the bend in the road. The house sits nestled against the side of a hill overlooking the sea, deceptively idyllic. The walls are whitewashed in the local style, the windows small and round like portholes. There’s no porch, but a sturdy granite stoop overlooking a riotous garden filled with late-summer color: the blush of daisies, thickets of lavender and flowering mint, and tall stalks of blazing sunflowers that turn their great seeded heads toward the sky. Above the terracotta roof sprawls the branches of a very old fruit tree with dark, spade-shaped leaves and little bundles of pale orange fruits not quite at their prime. Apricots, Caleb thinks to himself, or maybe peaches.

“You have the key?” Fjord says. Caleb tugs it out of his shirt and pulls the chain over his head.

“Would you like to do the honors?”

They leave the horses hitched to a garden post and approach. The door is painted a brilliant emerald green, with a little brass door-knocker in the shape of a three-pronged claw. Fjord coughs and gives it a little rap.

“She’s already moved into town, I think,” Caleb reminds him.

“I know.” Fjord smiles sheepishly. “Just checking.”

The key fits into the lock and turns without a sound. Caleb holds his breath a little, part of him expecting a trap or a misunderstanding, but the only thing that comes out of the house is a draft of dusty air. He snaps his fingers and Frumpkin jumps out of thin air into the hallway. Fjord waits with him there on the stoop, even though every line of his body strains forward like an eager dog ready to sniff up every secret held within. A moment passes. Three.

“Clear,” Caleb says quietly, and together they step into the house, shoulder to shoulder like they always have.

Before anything else, they explore. The front room is also a kitchen, with windows facing out over the garden and a sturdy oak table that looks too big to move. Fjord raps his knuckles against its workworn surface and nods in approval. In the back is a washroom and a little office to one side that has a nice view of the apricot tree, and a tiny sitting room still furnished, everything draped over with dust cloths.

Upstairs they find the master bedroom. There is a frame and a mattress and little else, but it has an enormous fireplace and a comfortable water closet attached, and a magnificent view of the sea. Caleb stands and stares out at its far blue expanse, the little whitecaps ruffling its surface beyond the shelter of the cove. Behind him is a _whoompf_ and a terrific creak of rusted springs, and he turns to see Fjord facedown on the bed, still bouncing slightly with the momentum.

“Really?” he says, trying to be stern—but the wild grin on Fjord’s face is contagious.

“I had to test it,” Fjord says defensively. He rolls onto his back and lets his head hang off the side, waggling his eyebrows at Caleb upside-down. “Care to assist me?”

“You are incorrigible.” Caleb goes to him nonetheless and sits with far more caution on the edge of the bed. “We’re going to need some furniture.”

“The essentials are here.” Fjord nudges his way across the mattress until he can plop his head in Caleb’s lap and his feet up on the footboard. Caleb doesn’t have the heart to chide him for the smears of mud his boots left behind on the mattress cover. “Anything we don’t have we should be able to get from town, or make ourselves.”

“Oh, so you are a carpenter now?” Caleb says with feigned surprise. He runs his fingers through Fjord’s hair, tugging it free of its queue. Nearly half his head is white, now—it streaks back from his forehead in thick swathes, as if someone had dipped their hand in paint and dragged it through. Caleb presses his thumb to the permanent worry groove carved between his brows and Fjord hums. “So many hidden talents you have kept from me.”

“I could learn,” Fjord mumbles. His eyes are already half-shut. “I’m good at things.”

Caleb chuffs with soft laughter. “So you are, my dear. So you are.” He lets them have this little moment for a while longer before chivvying Fjord up and awake. “Come, come—there’s more upstairs to explore.”

“How about you go ahead and tell me what you find,” Fjord says, but he sits up reluctantly and rubs his nap from his eyes. “I’m right behind you.”

Caleb doesn’t expect much from the rest of the second floor. The house is humble by necessity: no one expects a spymaster to erect her domain a sleepy seaside town, and they'd already found the secret passages hidden in the study and the washroom downstairs. At the end of the hall is a trapdoor to the attic, which a cursory glance reveals to be dusty and mostly empty. That leaves only one room left. With pale sunlight streaming down the hall, accompanied by the murmured sounds of Fjord talking to Frumpkin, Caleb puts his hand to the door and pushes inward.

It’s a small but sturdy room, and completely bare. No shelves, no extra furniture shoved aside. No curtains. It looks over the apricot tree and the sea beyond. The walls are a pale yellow, the floor made of old varnished wood like the rest of the house. Dust fills the corners even more than the other rooms he’s seen so far, and Caleb wonders if this room has been abandoned even longer than the rest.

Footsteps creak behind him and Fjord puts a hand to the small of his back. “Anything interesting?”

Caleb stands at the threshold, thinking. It’s a quiet, lonely room, completely innocuous, but something about it feels… heavy. “No,” he says softly, hand tracing the polished wood of the door frame. “Just an empty room.”

Fjord peers over his shoulder. “Another bedroom, maybe.”

“Most likely, yes.” It’s smaller than the master suite, but still sizeable—a more than adequate guest room, were it properly furnished. Caleb blows out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “We can use it for extra storage, perhaps. Or a workroom.”

“Sure.” Fjord gives his shoulder a squeeze. “It’s awfully chilly for being the middle of summer. I’m going to hunt down some wood and get a fire going.”

“Check the flue first!” Caleb calls after him. “Who knows what sorts of creatures are living in there.”

 

.autumn.

The house in autumn is like an aged relative, joints worn thin with time and the blueish shadow of late, lonely nights smudged in all its corners. The wind rattles around its creaking bones and Caleb often wakes in the frosty mornings to window panes clustered with swirls of ice. When the sun rises higher and the fern frost melts, he throws open all the windows to admit weak warmth and chase the cobwebs from the dusty corners.

It’s slowly becoming theirs. Autumn comes lazily on the Coast, even this far north, so they’re in no hurry to fill the gaps. Caleb makes the most progress, at first; he whitewashes the entire outside with a fresh coat of paint, scrubs the floors with lemon oil, takes his time in the slow, honeyed afternoons with a little pouch and sprinkles ground cinnamon with every mending cantrip.

Fjord, meanwhile, has gotten it into his head that nothing will do but for him to build from scratch every furniture item they need. The first attempt, a set of chairs for their kitchen table, goes horribly awry, and at Caleb’s gentle urging he moves onto something simpler: a bedside stand.

He sets up a sawhorse beneath the apricot tree as the fruits grow dark and ripe, and spends long afternoons sweating in the sun over the precious scraps of unused lumber he found in the side shed. Caleb makes a point to watch him only from a distance. Fjord has always been a little self-conscious, and even now, years after their first meeting, he prefers not to make a spectacle of himself. And a spectacle it is. Fjord is uncannily good with a blade, decent with darts and a corkboard (though he’ll never match Nott for speed or accuracy), and has always been better than Caleb at the more delicate mending arts. Darning, needlework, that sort of thing. But this…

Caleb stands at the window of the spare room, as he’s come to think of it, and peers through the leaves with a little smile at Fjord’s sweaty nape as he labors over his pet project. The window-glass is pushed open a little to admit the cool air, and he can hear Fjord muttering and swearing to himself from here. Frumpkin lays in the grass in a patch of sun a few paces away, tail flicking as he pretends not to notice Fjord’s ineptitude.

Then the hammer comes down with a solid, fleshy _thunk_ on Fjord’s thumb, and the resulting yelp has Caleb rushing down the stairs to tend to him. When he pushes through the heaps of heavy-headed tansy that bob waist-high at the edge of the garden, Fjord has thrown his hammer to the ground and is sucking his thumb like a sulky child. He whips his hand away from his mouth as soon as he sees Caleb and gives a strained smile.

“Er, hello there. Everything all right?”

“With me? Ja, everything is just dandy. With _you_?” Shaking his head, Caleb takes the injured hand to inspect the damage. It’s not very bad—it’s not even bleeding. But the nail bed is badly bruised, and Caleb can only imagine how it must ache. “Come inside and let’s put some ice on it.”

“Caleb—” Fjord pulls his hand away rather than be drawn inside and stands there, sweaty and rumpled and irritable.

Caleb waits. “Yes?” he says, when nothing else is forthcoming.

Fjord’s shoulders slump. “Nothing. I’m fine. Go back inside, I’ll… I’ll just finish up.”

Caleb’s eyes slide around his bulk to the sawhorse. There appears to be a slab of vaguely square-ish wood, attached at one corner to an off-kilter table leg. Two more legs sit waiting their turn on the ground, and the fourth must have gone the way of the hammer, pitched into the tall grass in a fit of frustration.

Tucked beneath the unfinished project are a few crumpled pages dense with Fjord's everywhere-scrawl—Caleb recognizes the measurements he'd caught Fjord taking in the bedroom a few weeks prior, some scratched out sketches, and notes in every direction. The plan at a glance seems solid enough, but the execution... “Are you sure you don’t need any help, _Schatz_?” he says gently.

“I don’t—I just—” Fjord groans and rubs his face with both hands, smearing sawdust and sweat across his brow. “I just wanted to make something nice for you,” he admits in a mumble that could almost be called _petulant._ Caleb’s chest swells.

“Sweetheart, what on earth are you talking about?”

Fjord heaves a sigh. “Nevermind. It’s foolish. I just—I know you like to read in the evenings before bed, and I thought it would be nice for you to have a little stand on your side of the bed for your glasses, and some extra shelf space for books. I wanted to make it for you myself. But you were right, I’m no carpenter.” He flexes his sore hand and winces, and this time he doesn’t pull away when Caleb reaches out to kiss the wounded thumb with frost.

“Darling man,” Caleb says, quiet and brimming with affection. “I appreciate the sentiment, truly. But if you wish to be a craftsman, I think perhaps you should start with lessons?”

Fjord squints at him, face dappled with sun and shadow through the leaves of the apricot tree. “Lessons? What, d’you mean I can just… do that?”

Caleb laughs. “I mean, I suspect there’s at least one carpenter handy in a town like this. Enough gold will tempt any man into professorship.” He rocks up on his toes and kisses Fjord’s bemused mouth. “We can walk down tomorrow and have a chat with Marge. She’ll know who to talk to.”

Fjord grumbles a bit more, but allows himself to be drawn inside for a cup of tea and a biscuit. They’ve spent so much time sorting out the house that they haven’t ventured into town very much—not to mention they’re neither of them overly fussed with social niceties—but this will be as good an excuse as any to begin properly assimilating.

They spend the rest of the afternoon doing very little. Fjord allows him to bandage his thumb and they sit wedged together on the narrow stone stoop, hip to thigh, eating fresh apricots and discussing what dreams they have for the place. Fjord wants to plant more fruit trees along the hill, where the sharp granite slope protects the house from the worst of the wind. Caleb wants a porch with his garden, and honeybees, and a vegetable patch.

“And what about that extra room?” Fjord ventures when their wild daydreams have receded and the wind begins to turn cool with the advent of evening. “Got any brilliant ideas?”

Caleb goes quiet for reasons he can’t fully explain. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Really?” Fjord flicks an apricot pit across the yard and they watch as Frumpkin dives after it, batting the little seed until it ceases to amuse him and he returns to his napping spot. “I thought… maybe a library?”

“Mmm… perhaps. The bookshelves in the study downstairs are quite ample.”

“Especially after that fancy spell you did.” Fjord’s rich voice is warm with admiration, and it tingles down to the tips of Caleb’s toes like it always has. He reaches up and brushes a strand of Caleb’s hair out of his eyes. “We’ll figure somethin’ out. No rush.”

“Certainly not,” Caleb agrees, smiling. He leans into Fjord until Fjord gets the hint and wraps him up in both arms, kissing his lips into a pleasant numbness.

They’ve christened the bed already, of course. The very first night Fjord struck up a fire to warm a room gone cold with abandonment, and he laid Caleb out on the bare mattress, kneeling over him like a penitent before his god. They’re not as young and desperate for each other as they once were, but the hunger is still there, and for as many nights as they fall dead asleep with the sky still sunset-pink, worn to the bone, they spend just as many wrapped in one another’s arms, skin to skin, chasing shared desire.

Tonight is like that. They share an early dinner and climb the stairs hand in hand when the sitting room grows too dark to see except by candlelight. Fjord had run down for a quick dip in the water, so he smells clean and a little salty under his clothes as Caleb undresses him. And because Fjord is so sweet and thoughtful and _good_ , Caleb kisses him breathless and then lays him out flat and fucks him until his unselfconscious bellowing laughter threatens to bring the ceiling down on their heads.

“Well,” Caleb says when he’s gone and returned to bed with a damp cloth and they’ve sorted themselves out, “one thing can be said for a house of our own—you can be as loud as you like when your friends aren’t trying to sleep on the other side of the wall.”

“Mmmmm,” Fjord agrees. With some effort, he rolls onto his side and smothers his face into the crook of Caleb’s neck.

“Cay…”

“Hmm?”

He reaches up, patting the top of Caleb’s head until he finds the reading glasses still tucked up behind his ears. “Tomorrow. I’ll go into town and… buy you a little bedside table. The nicest one they have.”

Caleb smiles and presses a kiss to Fjord’s brow. “Do you think if we plant apricots, we’ll have saplings in the spring?”

“Only one way to find out,” Fjord says whimsically, and promptly begins to snore.

 

.winter.

Midwinter descends upon them in a fury. Caleb is grateful for the hidden tunnel into town, because the footpath along the bluff is quickly buried in layers of ice and snow, impassable even when the furious coastal winds scour the stone deceptively clean. He learns about black ice not long after the new year when he steps out onto the stoop to sweep away the snow and his feet fly out from under him without warning.

He’s taken worse damage in battle many times, but Fjord is still white as a sheet when he helps him up and makes him sit in a chair by the fire for half an hour while he runs to get the village cleric. Caleb misses Jester keenly then, not only for her healing skill but her bright, effervescent bedside manner that keeps one’s mind off the pain. Father Patros is a decent healer, but gruff, and his brusque warning to be wary of where he puts his feet is ill-timed and ill-received.

Fjord, as usual, is the one to smooth things over. “Thank you so much for your help, Father,” he says with all the desperate politeness of someone who’s never much gone in for organized religion. “I really appreciate you coming out all this way—can I walk you back? Would you like a cup of tea or—here, a jar of jam for your troubles.”

When he’s gone and the house is quiet again, Fjord peers into the sitting room where Caleb has already stuffed his nose into a book. Caleb looked at him over his glasses. “A jar of jam, Fjord? Really?”

“It’s good jam,” Fjord says defensively. He comes into the room on light feet and sits gingerly on the other end of the antique settee, eyeing Frumpkin where he’s curled in Caleb’s lap. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine.” Caleb knows he’s being curt, but he can’t help it. He feels like a fool, and the sting of his hurt pride is worse than the lingering ache of his leg snapping like a twig on the ice. It’s whole now, and a perfectly serviceable job was done, but the cold claws of helplessness remain. He runs a hand along Frumpkin’s spine. “Maybe some tea—”

The words haven’t even left his mouth before Fjord is springing up and headed to the kitchen. Caleb watches him through the open doorway as he putters about, filling the kettle with water, hunting down Caleb’s favorite mug—a handmade monstrosity that Jester gifted him for Midwinter—and sorting through their collection of teas, most of them provided by Caduceus during his last visit. Next year Caleb plans to cultivate his own in the garden, but for now their supply is more than ample enough to last through the winter.

By the time Fjord returns to him, wreathed in lavender-bergamot steam, Caleb’s ire has cooled. He accepts the mug and a kiss on the head, and shoos Frumpkin off his lap so that Fjord can sit nestled up beside him and drape an arm across his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I’m a grumpy old man,” Caleb mutters into the rim of his cup. He feels thick fingers in his hair and sighs.

“You’re not old, Caleb.” Fjord presses his thumb to the base of his skull and rubs away the ache that had built there over the last hour or so. “Is that what this is about?”

“What _what_ is about?”

“I’ve seen you take arrows to the chest and blades in your back and shrug them off with hardly a murmur after a battle. And now…”

“Now I’m snarling and snapping like a bitch in heat, yes, I’m aware.” Caleb folds his hands more tightly around the mug and tries to calm himself, sorting through the tangle of irritation in his brain. “You’re right. This _wasn’t_ a battle. This was a stupid mistake. One misstep and I was out of commission. You see? I’m one of the most powerful magic wielders in Wildemount and because of a _fall_ I became… helpless.”

Fjord is quiet for a long while, though his fingers still move in Caleb’s hair. “Accidents happen,” he says at last, and Caleb prepares to shrug him off, but Fjord won’t let him. “That’s part of the fun, isn’t it? The fun of living. We’ve been heroes for too long, I think. We’ve forgotten what it feels like to be mere mortals.”

Caleb swallows against the bitter taste and leans his head on Fjord’s shoulder. “How did you grow to be so wise?”

“Well you see,” says Fjord, and Caleb can’t see his face, but the smile in his voice is as visible to him as a sunrise, “I spent many years traveling with a pack of wonderful idiots. _Someone_ had to do the thinking for us.”

“I think Caduceus would beg to differ.”

“Not you?”

“I would say I’ve proven today that I’m just as much of an idiot as anyone.” Caleb touches his leg over his clothes, near the place where the bone had splintered neatly in half. The bone itself is nicely healed, but the skin is still a little bruised, aching with an addictive kind of tenderness when he pushes on it, like he’d fallen and skinned his knee. Fjord catches his hand and laces their fingers together. “Thank you, _Schatz._ For your wisdom.”

Fjord busses a kiss to his brow. “Anytime.”

The afternoon continues apace, and the next morning Caleb steps carefully out onto the stoop to find it scattered with flakes of salt, clean and free of ice. He wraps his his coat around himself more securely and looks out over the bluff. He can see two sets of footprints in the snow: Fjord’s sturdy boots tramping all the way down to the boathouse where he’s been spending most of his mornings, and tiny little paw-pats where Frumpkin followed him down. He resists the urge to slip into his familiar’s eyes to see what Fjord is up to. Whatever it is, he’s being very secretive, and Caleb doesn’t want to ruin the surprise.

Instead he steps back inside and sits down to pen a letter to Jester and Beauregard. They are also in the Menagerie Coast for the winter, but much further south in Nicodranas, where the coldest temperature will hardly be enough to touch the leaves with color. They have promised to visit once the weather warms before returning to the Nein’s estate, and Caleb is looking forward to it with great anticipation. He’s not quite sure why, but he has an intense desire to show off the little house to their friends. He wants to show them the garden, and the homey little kitchen, and the apricot tree, and the boathouse down by the water. All this that they have built for themselves out of bones and tired earth, now buried beneath snow and ice—he cannot wait for spring.

He begins the letter, writing into the pages of an enchanted journal, and it isn’t long before his spidery ramblings are interrupted by the blotchy, whorled loops of Jester’s handwriting. Her journal is this one’s twin, and they spend much of the morning going back and forth—interrupted only a few times by Beauregard’s smooth, educated hand—until Fjord returns from his mystery task and Jester signs off to go spend quality time with her wife.

“Do you ever think of getting married?” Fjord asks him out of the blue, when Caleb has finished reading him the more entertaining bits of their conversation over lunch. Caleb sets down his fork and stares at him over the table.

“What?”

Fjord meets his gaze across the table with a bashful, steady smile. “I know it doesn’t really matter, like for taxes and things, but sometimes I think it sounds kind of nice. We already live together. I have no intention of ever leaving your side. What’s the harm in making things… official?”

“If you think Father Patros will agree to marry us after my unfortunate display yesterday, you’re out of your mind.”

“That’s not a no.” Fjord is watching him carefully. Not… _braced_ , exactly, but holding himself with care, like he’s afraid of seeming too eager. Caleb reaches across the table and takes his hand.

“I’ve not really thought about it, no, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out of the question.” His chest feels strangely full. In truth the idea of marriage had never occurred to him—has never been a thought in his mind, not for years and years. Maybe as a boy he had the occasional rose-colored concept of having what his parents had, a spouse, a home, a… child. But his life had turned out quite differently from any of that, and he has no regrets at all. He pushes his plate aside and takes Fjord’s other hand. “Are you asking me to marry you, dear heart?”

Fjord huffs a little self-conscious laugh. “Well. Not in an official capacity, maybe, but… let’s just say I’m open to discussin’ the possibility.”

Caleb has patchy memories of Beauregard and Jester’s union, largely fogged over by the sheer quantity of alcohol he’d consumed that day, and waves it aside with a little shake of his head. “Just so you know… I already have everything I want, Fjord.” He gives his hands a squeeze. “Everything else is just a bonus.”

 

.spring.

When the last of the snow has melted and the little house is bright and warm again, nestled in patches of new spring heather, Fjord brings Caleb down to the boathouse. Aside from a few visits early on, when they were still sorting things out, Caleb hasn’t been here very much at all, and the warmth of anticipation lights a flame in his breast all the way down the smooth granite steps to the beach.

The sun may be high in the sky, but the breeze off the ocean is still tinged with chill, and he wraps his lumpy sweater tightly around himself as he follows Fjord into the humble structure. He lets out a small gasp in spite of himself.

“ _Fjord_. You did this?”

“Yeah.”

Grinning to himself, Fjord goes quickly around the little workshop—which is what it has become, over the long, cold winter days—to light the kerosene lamps affixed to the walls. There is a workbench against one wall that wasn’t there before, and a proper sawhorse, and the little skiff turned onto its side, half-stripped of old caulk. In the center of the room are two chairs: their legs are sturdy and sound, their spokes smooth, the seats polished and waxed to a warm honey-yellow sheen.

“Don’t mind the boat,” he says, smacking the hull affectionately like one might a horse. “I wanted to strip her and refit her for spring, but she’s not quite finished.”

Caleb goes to the chairs and skims the back of one with his hand. The varnish is smooth to the touch, and the slight acidic tang of it mingles in his nose with sawdust and wood shavings. “Can I…”

“Of course! Please, sit.” Fjord pretends to pull one out a bit, as if from a table, and Caleb settles himself into it gingerly, almost expecting it to melt away at the contact. But it’s just as sturdy as it looks, and he leans back against it with a little sigh as Fjord’s hands alight on his shoulders.

“They’re beautiful,” he says. “For the kitchen?”

“Naturally.” A kiss is placed to the top of his head. “I didn’t make the bedside stand because we already bought you one, but if you really want…”

Caleb just laughs. And then he and Fjord bring their new chairs up to the house and settle them in their proper places to either side of the kitchen table. The stools they’d been using til now are moved upstairs to the spare room—still mostly empty, apart from the occasional furniture item they don’t have the space for anywhere else. The windows are still bare of curtains, and it’s a bit of a sad, forlorn sort of place. Caleb lingers in the doorway a bit, pondering, before closing the door and returning to the kitchen to begin dinner.

* * *

Spring settles in in earnest, and they are both very busy with shared pursuits as well as personal projects. Fjord gets it into his head that now is the perfect time to clean out the chimneys and check the roof for loose tiles, and Caleb spends long afternoons in the garden with one eye to the sky, waiting wryly for him to tumble off the roof and take a turn at breaking something. Beau and Jester visit for a few days but spend their nights at the inn in town, chiding them for their lack of spare bedroom. Caleb brushes their suggestions off with a shrug and a smile. They’ll do something with it, he promises them. By the next time they visit, it’ll be ready.

He also tells Beauregard about Fjord’s mention of marriage. After a round of muffled yelling and a very careful celebratory punch to the shoulder—all delivered in the midst of the inn’s fairly peaceful common room—Beau sets her beer on the table and asks, “Do you want to?”

“Of course I do,” Caleb blurts. “It just hasn’t been the right time.”

“The right time? What, do the stars have to align and the portents all predict good crops or some shit?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he mutters. “We’ve just been busy. Spring is a very busy time for us.”

“Hmm. So I see.” Beau folds her arms over her chest and lets her eyes drift across the bar to where Jester is beating Fjord handily at an impromptu arm wrestling competition. A small smile touches her lips, a fond, sickly-sweet expression that Caleb has seen on her face only rarely. “If you’re worried about it changing things between you… don’t be. I didn’t think it was something I wanted, but with her? It’s everything.”

“You are a sap, Beauregard Lionett,” Caleb accuses.

“Hah! Take it back, Widogast.” She clinks her tankard with his. “I see the way you look at him. If I’m a sap, then you’re just a puddle of ooey-gooey _feelings_.”

“Hmmph. Maybe so.” Caleb swirls his ale and peers into its cloudy depths. “I know it’s foolish,” he says, more seriously now, “but it really does feel like I’m waiting for something. Like we both are. Maybe it’s just settling into this new life, maybe it’s something else. I don’t know.”

“Have you talked to Caduceus about it?” Beau asks. “He knows all about fate and destiny and shit.”

“I am not asking Caduceus if I am _fated_ to marry Fjord, Beauregard.”

“Fine, have it your way. But if I don’t have a wedding invitation in my mail by the end of the year I’m going to be pretty damn put out with you, Caleb.”

“Noted,” Caleb says, and they shake on it.

* * *

With Beau and Jester gone again, the house feels emptier than it has since they first moved in. Caleb throws himself into gardening to try to shake the feeling. Flowers against the house, morning glories and honeysuckle mixed in with pole beans, tomatoes and peppers farther out, bare plots left for squashes and root vegetables later in the year. He accompanies Fjord on the occasional early morning fishing trip, and spends long evenings in the study, categorizing his vast library and working special enchantments into the shelves to allow for more to fit than should be physically possible. Fjord doesn’t bring up marriage again, and seems perfectly content to continue this way of life, but Caleb wonders if it’s only a matter of time before they grow bored and restless and go crawling back to their compatriots, abandoning the idea of retirement for the thrill of the adventurer’s lifestyle.

In late spring, Caleb leaves Fjord down by the shore gutting his latest catch and walks the bluffs into town. He doesn’t go every day, more like once or twice a week as the weather warms, and it’s become a peaceful habit to stop into the various shops, say hello to the faces he knows, trade gossip with the fishwives at their market stalls. Today, in particular, he has a personal task: a gift and an apology to Father Patros.

The temple is quiet when he steps inside, though the doors were open like an invitation. The faint smell of incense burns the back of his nose as he paces down the center aisle. It’s a small, simple sort of church—two sets of benches from the head of the hall to the end, an altar shared between Father Patros and the other town cleric, whose devotion to the Wildmother feels closer to Caleb’s heart than the worship of the Dawnfather that Patros ascribes to. They seem to get on well, at least, if the small potted flowering tree at the altar is an indication. Caleb drops a silver into the box at the front and lights a candle with a gesture, joining a handful of others that have already been lit by visitors. The chapel is deathly quiet, and the sharp ring of the coin and the puff of the wick bursting into flame seem inordinately loud. The back of Caleb’s neck prickles.

From somewhere in the back, beyond the courtesy wall built for the clerics’ privacy, there comes a weak, tinny cry. Caleb goes still. “Hello?” he calls, and his voice echoes eerily against the plain stone walls. “Father?”

There are some muffled words and then quick shuffling steps, and Father Patros steps out from the back. His somewhat harried expression grows brittle at the sight of him. “Ah. Mr. Widogast. Welcome. Is there some service I can provide for you?”

“I…” Caleb begins, and tries to gather himself. “I’m sorry for coming unannounced. I wanted to come and offer my apology for what occurred this past winter. I was quite rude to you after you so kindly saw to my injuries.” The words sound stilted even to him, but he’s trying, dammit. He extends the basket he brought—his peace offering filled with the last of the season’s apricot jam, a pot of early spring honey, and a few other odds and ends purchased around town that might be useful for the temple.

“Well,” Father Patros says gruffly, appearing to soften somewhat. “That’s not necessary, Mr. Widogast, but I appreciate you stopping by.” He takes the basket anyway and gives a little nod. “Consider it forgotten.”

As if to punctuate the awkwardness between them, another little cry rings out, stronger than the first. Caleb’s eyebrows lift. “Is that…”

Father Patros coughs and his brow wrinkles even further. “Nothing to worry your head over. On occasion we have… other kinds of gifts left on our doorstep, being a temple and all. Mistress Deirdre will see to it that they’re given proper care—”

“Someone left a _child_ at your door?” Caleb interrupts, horrified.

“It is unusual, yes, given our solitary little town, but not unheard of.” Father Patros’ face is grim. “People will go far out of their way to dispose of the unwanted. If you will excuse me.”

The priest turns away as if in dismissal, but Caleb follows uninvited, feet moving as if of their own accord. The holy father does not dissuade him, and so Caleb finds himself back in the clerics’ private quarters, watching as he bends over a large basket set upon a table, trying awkwardly to soothe it. The basket’s contents give a mighty kick and a screech. Strangely breathless, Caleb draws close and peers over his shoulder.

There is a baby in the basket, of course. A skinny, underfed little thing, who is nevertheless determinedly waving its tiny balled-up fist at Father Patros as though demanding to be held. Its tiny balled-up _green_ fist. The baby is undeniably part orc, with a shock of dark, curly hair and wide eyes so blue and crystalline that Caleb doubts any part of him is human.

“Well, here he is,” Father Patros says roughly. “Deirdre has gone for a midwife—neither of us have any idea about caring for young children, let alone one of his type.”

 _His type_ , Caleb thinks scornfully, though he keeps his irritation to himself. He reaches down and touches that small hand—instantly the child’s attention is torn away to him, and the focus in those silver-blue eyes is so intense that he gasps.

“ _Hallo, liebling_ ,” he says. The baby’s energetic kicking subsides. “Who are you, then? What’s your story?”

“Ah!” the baby declares proudly.

“We have no idea of his age,” Father Patros is saying, along with a few other things, but Caleb has already tuned him out. He reaches into the basket and scoops the little boy up, tucking him against his chest. He’s heavier than he looks, though perhaps that’s just a half-orc trait, and he has no trouble keeping his head up on his own. Nearly a year old, perhaps, though it’s difficult to tell with the shadow of malnutrition clinging to his cheeks. Caleb pokes the tip of his finger into the boy’s mouth and winces when he immediately chomps down on it with tiny, half-grown teeth.

“Fuck,” he bites out on instinct, and immediately regrets it. “I mean—well, you’re too young to remember that anyway, _ja_?”

Father Patros clears his throat. “He is going to need a lot of care, Mr. Widogast. If you mean to offer your assistance it would be most welcome, but you must understand that children abandoned so young rarely grow up as nicely as we would hope.”

Caleb wants to snap at him for his small-mindedness, but the boy in his arms stops him. He takes a deep breath. “I need a moment alone, please,” he says, and walks out into the chapel without waiting for a reply.

He casts Sending to Fjord because he can’t think of what else to do. The boy wriggles in his arms, face puckering as if gearing up for a cry, but Caleb sits on a pew and summons Frumpkin, and the cat’s soft ears are enough of a distraction.

Hardly five minutes later the door bangs open, some apologetic noise awkwardly following, and the baby startles into a whimper. Caleb kisses his head and murmurs nonsense in Zemnian, breathing him in. He smells sweet and a little bit herbal, like sage rubbed between the fingers. Quick footsteps ring out along the aisle and Caleb looks up into Fjord’s eyes.

“What—” Fjord says, and stops. His hands clench and relax at his sides. “Caleb…”

“Fjord.” Caleb stands and maneuvers the boy into one arm, turned a bit so that he can see Fjord. “I…”

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t have the words to explain himself, to make any of this make _sense_. All he knows is that he’s holding a child in his arms, a child with green skin and too-big teeth and eyes as incandescently bright as the night sky, and he doesn’t want to let him go.

“Who’s this, then?” Fjord whispers at last, as if afraid to disturb him. The baby mumbles some nonsense words, vaguely sing-songish, and reaches for him. “Caleb, _what_ is going on?”

“Someone left him,” Caleb says hurriedly, even as the boy struggles to get to Fjord. Caleb gives in and holds him out, legs kicking excitedly, until Fjord is able to take him and hold him against his chest. One hand fits neatly under his bum, the other cradles his back, fitting together like two pieces of a long-lost puzzle. “They abandoned him on the stoop without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“Not unusual,” Fjord says, voice low. His eyes are strangely wet. “Half-orcs aren’t exactly what I’d call a… desirable sort of offspring.”

“Bah,” says the baby. He reaches up and puts one little hand on Fjord’s chin. Just resting.

“I know this is out of the blue,” Caleb says, wringing his hands together, “but I… can we…”

“ _Yes_ ,” Fjord says without waiting for him to finish. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off the child. “Of course. Yes. We—we can’t do anything else. Can we?”

Caleb watches him closely. Watches the tremble of his mouth where his tusks protrude just the slightest bit, never quite as long and impressive as they could be. Watches the single droplet that spills down his cheek and drips onto his shirt collar.

“He’s ours,” Caleb says carefully, and feels the resonance of the truth of it way down in his bones. “I think… he was always meant to be ours.”

Fjord’s fragile mask cracks into a damp smile. “Guess we found a use for that spare room.”

 

.summer.

The house in summer is loud and full of life. Caduceus grows them a magnificent oak in the shade of the bluffs specifically for treestride, and their little cottage by the sea becomes a hub once more—not for information and spies, but for friends. Family. Nott visits as much as she can, taking a break from her work as the Gentlewoman of Zadash to babysit little Van. Beauregard comes to sit with Fjord in the evenings and talk shop over his woodworking. Caduceus drops by every once in a while to offer garden advice and drink copious amount of tea. And Van grows tall.

It’s shocking how quickly he sprouts. _Half-orcs_ , Fjord says with a little shrug, almost like an apology, and Caleb kisses his cheek and says _I love it._

He is two years old, they figure, in a discussion about when his birthday most likely falls, and making up for lost time. He follows Frumpkin everywhere, tottering after him on fat little feet, learning to fall on his face and scramble up again and fall and rise and run, shrieking, through the sun-warm grass. He isn’t much of a talker yet, but he will babble quietly to Frumpkin, or shout nothing words at the seagulls that pass over the bluffs. And in the evenings, when they put him to bed, his eyes glow a dazzling blue as Caleb sings him to sleep in Celestial.

“He’s a little angel,” Jester sighs when she visits, and she isn’t wrong.

Yasha visits for the first time toward the end of summer, when the bluffs are cloaked in rust-red and pale ochre, inviting autumn’s frosty onset. She sits with him, the hulking gentle giant and the little half-orc boy, and talks to him in Celestial—sings to him, rather, though Caleb tries not to listen in. He can speak it, but he isn’t part of that world. This first impression feels important, and he doesn’t want to intrude.

He starts speaking a little more after that. Sometimes in chirping Celestial, but more and more in Common, babbling with laughter like a runaway stream. He calls Caleb _Papa_ for the first time on the last warm day of the year, and Caleb has to go and sit down in the garden for a little while, watching the butterfly bush sway in the wind and trying not to openly weep.

Fjord finds him there as the sun is setting. Van is poking at a beetle in the dirt not far away, entirely unaware of the effect he’s had, and when Fjord walks up from the beach, nets in hand for repair, he jumps up and runs to him, arms extended. Caleb blots his eyes with his sleeve and gets up from the bench.

“Vandren Widogast!” Fjord booms, scooping him up and twirling him around until he shrieks with laughter. “What sort of trouble have you gotten into today, hmm?”

“No trubble!” Van insists, wriggling with delight. “I’m _gut_!”

“ _Ja_ , you are very _gut_ ,” Fjord agrees. He grins as his son scrambles onto his shoulders and he bends to kiss Caleb on the cheek. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Everything is _wunderbar_.” Caleb reaches up and squeezes Van’s little bare feet, caked with mud from the garden. “But I think someone is going to need a bath before dinner.”

“Noooooo,” Van wails, and fastens his fingers into Fjord’s silver hair. “No bath!”

“Yes bath, Vandren,” Fjord says sternly. “C’mon, you little monster, or no thumbprint cookies for dessert.”

“Want cookies!” Van insists, aggrieved at this unfortunate compromise.

“They’re very good, _ja_ , you did a good job.” Caleb kisses the little hands that had assisted him in the kitchen the day before. There had been jam _everywhere_ by the time they were finished, even in Van’s hair and behind his pointed ears, but the end result was well worth it. The movement puts him right up next to Fjord's covert smile, so he kisses that too.

“Mmhm," Fjord assures them both, with a wink for Caleb. "Bend down, baby boy, don’t hit your head.” He ducks inside and shakes his boots off, leaving the door open behind him. Caleb follows just to the threshold and leans there for a moment or two, just watching. Fjord sits Van on the edge of the sink and gets the water going while he rolls up Van’s little trouser legs. Despite his earlier protests, Van watches this endeavor with great interest, his chubby fingers still holding onto Fjord’s shirtsleeve.

The house is truly theirs, now. It has their mark in every candlewick, every folded blanket, every secret bookshelf heavy with history. But the house is just a shell. The house is nothing without them inside it, the sound of their laughter, the steadfastness of their affection. Nothing without Van, who is bigger every day, bigger and brighter and happier.

The room isn’t empty anymore. Caleb hopes it will never be empty again.

“Cay, can you grab the soap for me?” Fjord calls, and Caleb jerks into action, slowly, like he’s been pulled from a deep sleep. The late summer sun gleams over the horizon and then winks out as Caleb closes the door behind him and goes to help get ready for dinner.


End file.
